July 30. I read the first line again.
At ten past nine I took out the combined volume.
Open the cover and it is not a table of contents. One line comes first.
It is the line I read on the second of January. I came to this room that day and read that line.
I read it again after seven months.
At twenty past nine I read it character by character without sounding it.
It says this bundle passes to whoever next reads this line.
There is no name.
There is no date either. There is no place to enter the one who passed it on.
I looked at the writing. It is a hand that joins the final consonants on.
It is the hand of the one before me. My hand writes that way now.
At half past nine I opened the consultation record.
It was opened once on my account on the second of January.
It has been opened again today.
It was opened in between as well. Six times over seven months.
Two of the six are my account. Four are arrivals by the imprint route.
At ten to ten I wrote down the dates of the four.
The eleventh of February. The sixteenth of April. The twenty-second of May. The first of June.
I matched the last three against what I counted last month.
The three days the double entries diverged. The three days with no hook.
There is no field in the query record for entering that the dates agree.
I entered it in the margin. Eighty-eight.
At five past ten I looked for who the four are.
Only the route remains. There is no field in the query record for the arriving party.
The number of people who read it is six. Who read it is two.
At ten past ten I looked at the line again.
It says whoever next reads it.
If it was read six times, six are the ones who next read it.
Not one.
At twenty past ten I opened the handover form.
The fifth field is the one receiving.
Eight letters are there, and my name is on the attached sheet.
I looked for whether what stands in the receiving field and what the first line points to are the same.
There is no item joining the two forms.
There is no field to enter that they are the same and none to enter that they differ.
I entered it in the margin. Eighty-nine.
At eleven I looked at whether anything differed before the reading and after it.
The line is as it was. The character count is the same.
What differs is the consultation record. Six has become seven.
I wanted to ask whether reading settles the line.
The line is not the side that gets settled. The side that gets counted has gone up.
At one I entered today.
I entered that I had consulted the first line of the combined volume.
Having entered it I stopped my hand.
This log is the sixth sub-number. The sixth sub-number is inside the set.
The entry of having read the set's first line has gone inside the set.
At twenty past one I counted what the one who next reads it reads.
They read the first line. They read the table of contents below it.
Open the sixth sub-number and today is there.
Today says that I read the first line.
The one who next reads it reads the first line and the record of the first line being read together.
At half past one I looked at whether one more line could be written beneath the first.
There is margin. One line will fit.
There is no procedure by which the one passing it on adds a line.
There is no procedure saying not to add one either.
At twenty to two I looked at whether that is material.
Everything in the set is material. It carries a sub-number.
If what was read is entered, that is material too.
Between the reading and the becoming material there is no day.
In the twelfth month last year the one before me entered that the day had gone. I read that entry in April.
At ten to two I took out the material held unregistered.
Twelve pages. Unchanged since June.
It has no sub-number. It is not in the set.
That those twelve pages were read is entered in the log.
The entry of the reading became material and the thing read is not material.
At two I opened the last page.
The last page of the set.
Below it are ten characters.
We are watching a little further.
Below that it is blank. Two lines.
The two lines the one before me left blank in the twelfth month last year.
At half past two I opened the box.
Seven articles. Seven marks. Day five hundred and twenty-two.
The sixth field is eleven thousand three hundred and three. The set's row was opened a hundred and fifty times yesterday and the imprint route a hundred and four.
The right-hand material is seven hundred and ninety-four pages. The date of the added page is the twenty-eighth of the eighth month of ninety-nine. The third line of page five hundred and thirty-nine has been blank two hundred and fourteen days. The original of the fifth bundle is a hundred and seventy-seven pages and has not grown for five hundred and ninety-two days.
At three I opened the register of items sent and received.
The twelfth page has not come. It is the eighty-first day.
Head office has sent nothing yet either. The fifty-ninth day.
At twenty past three I took out the holding library's enquiry.
A month remains on the term for reply.
There are three items it asks after. Whether published, the year of publication, and the compiler.
At twenty to four I looked at the three in turn.
Whether it is published is settled by applying.
The year of publication becomes the year of the application.
For the compiler there is a field on the list.
That field is blank.
At four I looked at the field.
Left blank, it cannot be answered. Filled, it can.
There is no ground.
In April last year the one before me put their own name in the same field. That field is this room's compiler field.
The compiler fields of the four volumes are blank in all four.
At twenty past four I read the first line once more.
It says it passes to whoever next reads this line.
There is a field for entering what is to be passed on. There is no field for entering the one it passes to.
A month remains.